1.1.3 Be (Questions) Lesson Plan

October 7, 2013

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, K-3

In the BrainPOP ESL movie, Who is a Magician? (L1U1L3), Ben is surprised to learn that Moby is a magician. Through Ben’s questions, students are introduced to the interrogative form of the verb to be. In this lesson plan, adaptable for grades K-8, students use images to practice making questions with the present tense affirmative of the verb to be.

Materials:

Vocabulary:

who, what, when, where, how, why

Question Words: What, Where, and Who. Do a modified Concept Attainment activity to differentiate among the three Wh- question words, using the Wh- Question Picture Prompts. Display the picture of the rabbit and ask, “What is it?” Place 1-2 additional pictures of objects or animals underneath the rabbit and repeat the question. Hold up the picture of the rabbit in the hat. Hesitate about where to place it, and then put it in a new column next to the rabbit. Ask, “Where is it?” Repeat with the pictures of Nikki and Magician Moby, and put them in a third column for “Who.” Then invite students to place additional pictures in the correct columns, and have them ask the questions.

Lesson Procedure:

Questions with To Be. Lay out the cards you prepared for one of the sentences, for example, “It is a bird.” Invite five students to the front of the class. Each should take a card, and stand in order so they create a sentence. Then ask them to rearrange themselves to create a question. When the It and is have changed places, ask if there is anything else they have to do to make it a correct question? Reveal the additional three cards and ask the students to correct the question.
Distribute blank cards to small groups and ask them to make up their own sentence and question cards. Have teams exchange their new sentence cards and play.

Keeping Count of Questions. During a repeated viewing of the movie Who is a Magician? (L1U1L3), ask students to count how many questions they hear. (Answer: 8)

Where is the Rabbit? Give students statements to which they must ask Yes/No or Wh- questions. For example: The rabbit is in the hat. (Is the rabbit in the hat? / What is in the hat? / Where is the rabbit? )